Greipel waited patiently as Ewan's Mitchelton-Scott train and Elia Viviani's Quick-Step Floors team set up their fast men for the finale, with Viviani going up the left side of the road and Ewan going up the right. Greipel jumped onto Ewan's wheel and then sailed past the Australian up the middle as Sagan fought his way into third at the line.

Greipel will now wear the first ochre leader's jersey of the race, while Ewan and Will Clarke, the day's main protagonist from the breakaway and winner of the prize for most active rider, are tied on time at four seconds back.

"A win is a win, I'm happy it turned out like that. To start the season with a win is always good for the team, for me. The criterium is one of the hardest races to win and when you do some small mistakes, you cannot win," he said.

"It's nice when you're 35 and everyone tells you, you will get slower. But I don't feel it and I really like to race my bike. Every win is good for the whole team. We calculated that we are probably the oldest team around here but I think we have a lot of quality and experience in our team. You saw that today, and we have the right riders on our team."

Clarke earned his spot in the general classification with an all-day adventure off the front, at first with Scott Bowden (UniSA-Australia) and Nickolas Dlamini (Dimension Data) in a three-man move, and then alone after first Bowden dropped and then Dlamini. Clarke hung in alone until he was reeled in with 10km to go, but only after earning six bonus seconds in two intermediate sprints.

The sprint trains came to the fore once the catch was made to set up the sprint. In fast run in, Mitchelton-Scott, Quick-Step Floors and Bora were at the front of the bunch but once inside the final turn, it was Greipel and Lotto-Soudal timing their run to perfection. A last-corner crash for Daniel Hoelgaard (FDJ) though was a slight distraction from the German's 17th career stage win.

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